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Construction of agriculture bins is poised for growth, as projections call for an increase in corn and grain yield by 2019. In addition, the ethanol-market boom is driving demand for used bins, carts and other handling equipment.

Related Summaries

The Department of Agriculture is expected to release a report today lowering its projections for US corn production. Unfavorable conditions, particularly in the South, will be a factor in the USDA's estimates, analysts say.

The Renewable Fuel Standard is "an unmitigated success by any measure," said Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, in a debate with Kristina Butts, executive director of legislative affairs at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Everybody in the farm community, including livestock producers, has benefited from the "rising tide" created by the RFS, Dinneen said. In addition to exerting downward pressure on fuel prices, the RFS is promoting production of distillers dried grains with solubles, "an incredibly important factor in the profitability of livestock operations," Dinneen stated.

Pacific Ethanol's tentative proposal to split the parcel map for its property near Madera, Calif., won the approval of the county's planning commission. The request to separate the idled production plant from an adjacent granary and loop track is a preliminary step in Pacific Ethanol's plan to divest the grain-handling facility and reopen the ethanol plant, said spokesman Paul Koehler. "We will definitely reopen the plant. ... California can use the ethanol," Koehler said.

China has overtaken Canada as the second-biggest importer of U.S. distillers dried grain with solubles, or DDGS, with Mexico as the top importer, according to this blog post. In 2009, the U.S. exported to China 661,320 metric tons of DDGS, up from 97,940 metric tons in the previous year. Exports to China this year could rise to 2 million metric tons, or the equivalent of 78.69 million bushels of corn.

Cargill announced that it spent $825,000 to secure grain-handling assets and land rights at a half-finished ethanol plant in Carleton, Neb., that was sold in a piecemeal auction to pay off the debts of its owner, Altra Nebraska. Cargill, which has a grain-handling facility near the auctioned plant, will "make additional enhancements to the facility to make it fully operational," said company executive Robert Racek.